Thursday, October 30, 2008

I previously blogged about the abundance of specialized statistics in WoW. One thing I lost track of while juggling all of the various ratings and powers and attributes was how stats don't actually mean the same thing for different classes anymore.

For example, all five of the game's attributes can, for some class/spec out there, add spell or healing power to your character sheet. If you're a Retribution Paladin, one additional point of strength gets boosted by 15% through talents, another 10% if you have Blessing of Kings up, doubled to turn into Attack Power, and you then get 30% of the final number back in the form of spell power.

Would the game be better off if it had only two stats (attack and defense)? In some ways the answer is no - it's nice to be able to dictate that you're doing to focus your offense on critical hits to take advantage of certain talents. I'm sure it also helps Blizzard fill out the loot tables when they can offer side grades within the same tier of items. The problem is that then you end up with a mess where it's very hard to figure out how to weigh the various ratings.

I don't think this got noticed as much with the transition from level 60 to level 70, as the jump in gear quality was so great that either you were replacing everything, or you had been raiding for long enough that you got to put off gear decisions for a few levels. The jump from Outland to Northrend seems a bit smaller, though, so this change is going to hit a lot more people a lot earlier than it did last time out. And good luck if you have alts who cover all the different class roles - so many formulae to memorize, so little time.

2 comments:

Blizzard invents Stats to give another loot-option than just a thing with higher stats. Otherwise it would get even more out of control than I experienced it back when I played Wow. Spreading the useful stats gives options to the player .. and the need for more different items, which is for some people the sole motivation to run into those cold, dark, dangerous dungeons.

I just use "RatingBuster" to calculate these things for me because I am too lazy to remember what means what. Except using addons isn't for everyone and this one is a bit of a memory hog for reasons unknown to me because it is actually a very simple thing or should be to calculate some formulas and add the results to your tooltip.

Playing a hybrid class I am having gear trouble anyway and I am glad about some of the changes they made in itemization this time around because I can reduce my collecting to 2 sets instead of 4:

+ dmg and + healing became just spellpower.

Tank and Melee-DPS itemization is getting closer as well.

So right now it seems to be getting easier with less diverse stats to collect.

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About Player Versus Developer

I'm what they call a "WoW Tourist" - WoW was my first MMO, and being able to set my own schedule is a dealbreaker. At any given time, I can be found ducking in and out of half a dozen different MMO's.

This blog details some of my own personal exploits, but it also focuses on a meta-gaming issue that I find very interesting - the decisions developers make on how to reward player activity, and the decisions players make in response to maximize their own rewards.